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How Square Keeps a Connected Office Culture Amid International Growth

In the past year, mobile payments startup Square has opened offices in New York, Atlanta and Tokyo and doubled in size — growing from approximately 300 employees to more than 600.

Square, expanding beyond its San Francisco headquarters, seems to be handling the stress of massive growth with utmost grace. Head of Office Experience Chris Gorman has been along for the ride and sat down with Mashable to discuss the physical and digital modes of collaboration, transparency and inclusion that have helped the company maintain its identity and flair throughout an intense year of expansion.

Design for Collaboration

An open, collaborative culture is built from the ground up. From its first office to the newest three, Square has designed its work spaces to be large, open and ripe for serendipitous collaboration.

Gorman says the office planning process begins with the operational details: Finding the facility, local service and office supply providers. The team has lots of experience in operations, though, so that's a breeze. The fun part, he says, is what comes next: Figuring out the office experience, which means determining questions such as, "How do people operate in our spaces? How do they collaborate? How do these spaces work together for various group sizes?"

All of Square's offices are based on an open-floor layout with various central collaboration points, both seated and standing, closed and flowing. For example, the spaces have team rooms for intimate, focused discussion, but they also feature "cabanas" and standing tables for more impromptu sessions. These open formats allow for employees to engage in serendipitous conversations that sometimes lead to new product development ideas, says Gorman.

Connect Through Technology

Square's physical infrastructure leads way to digital and technological infrastructure that enables Square employees — whether they are in San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, or Tokyo — to work together seamlessly.

For starters, the organization owns three office robots — two in San Francisco and one in Tokyo — that anyone in the company can use to feel like they're on the ground in one of those two offices. Employees simply log in to the online portal, reserve an office bot and drive it around, all the while interacting with colleagues via video. These robots help support Square's friendly, creative office culture — two teammates who are separated by distance can have a robot-enabled, hallway-walking conversation, or a new international teammate can zoom over to say hello.

The built-in office technology also makes it easy for distant teammates to stay connected to one another. Video chat and live streaming are commonplace tech at Square. The weekly all-hands Town Square meeting at headquarters, for example, is live-streamed to all offices. The meeting takes an open-questions format, and international employees typically submit their questions via instant messaging or email for their local colleagues to ask.

True to Square's core tenets of transparency, collaboration and inclusion, the organization has a hardcore note-taking culture; any meeting of three or more people is typically captured in notes and sent out to the entire organization via an email list dedicated to note-sharing. "This creates visibility across projects," says Gorman. "If you're familiar with a particular project, but located in a different part of the organization and have an idea or want to challenge a thought, you now have the information to do so."

Don't Forget to Play

The strongest teams are those that not only work together, but also make time to play together. Square's culture puts an emphasis on creative playtime through events such as Square Games and Hack Week.

Square Games is a competition that runs concurrent across all offices worldwide, and gives teammates the opportunity to both physically and mentally challenge each other while building stronger relationships. The event includes a picnic and 15 different games which teammates compete in, including an obstacle course, dodgeball, human foosball, a giant game of Scrabble and Dance Dance Revolution.

In the spirit of worldwide, simultaneous collaboration, Square also conducts its annual Hack Week, when engineers work with designers and project managers in a hackathon-like environment to create cool new projects. All of the hacks are shown off in the weekly all-hands Town Square at the end of Hack Week. Deemed "Science Fair Town Square," this special all-hands is dedicated to showing off, reviewing and playing with the new creations generated during Hack Week.

Some of the most inspired projects from Hack Week go on to be real projects, says Gorman. Square Wallet, Analytics and receipt printing, for example, were all born at Hack Week. There are a lot more ideas in the pipeline and on their way from previous Hack Weeks, Gorman says. "We believe that great ideas can come from anywhere," he says. "That's why we design our spaces around collaboration, around discussion, around conversation. So, while you'll see this happening at Hack Week, you'll also see it happening every single day."

Go Global and Think Global

Being a global organization means thinking and acting global while also maintaining a company culture that spans its offices and keeps employees feeling connected.

Square's strategies, both physical and digital, have enabled it to instill a consistent culture with local flair at each of its locations. Square locals, too, are excited to share their local fare with visitors — and visitors there are many.

Though new hires at Square may have different home bases, they are all on-boarded in the San Francisco office through a week of Square One orientation, which gets newbies up to speed. During this week, new hires learn about the company's history and culture, and meet and eat with their HQ teammates. Since Tokyo teammates endure long flights to make it over, they get an extra week of Square One fun, says Gorman.

After returning to their home offices, employees are given the opportunity to visit headquarters or other offices once per quarter. This helps colleagues get to know one another, and gives teammates an opportunity to understand the merchant landscapes in the various locations in which Square operates.

The attractions and restaurants in Atlanta are of a different flavor than those in New York, for example. These differences, Gorman says, sparked another knowledge-sharing project at Square: "The Many Offices of Square" visitors guide, powered by Square employees and presented in "a really fancy version of Keynote," laughs Gorman. The guides, he notes, were a Hack Week creation — another testament of the useful tools that come out of that event.

The guides explain local places, restaurants, transportation and attractions, as well as shed light on the local office culture and things to do in that office. Those traveling to the New York office, for example, might learn that the teammates there really love Mario Kart, and have the chance to train for a Mario Kart challenge in advance. "It's a cool way to prepare for a trip," says Gorman.

Build Around Company Values

Square's strategic office experience planning is a great example of a forward-focused strategy, built with company values and growth in mind. From its digital to physical architectures, Square embodies what it believes in: Collaboration, transparency and inclusion.

Mashable
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